I heard a story of this woman of God back in the 60s who wanted to marry this famous man of God and she took hold of John 14:13 which says,“And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” and believed that God was going to honour her request to marry this man.
But there was only one problem…
The man was already married!
So how was she going to deal with the wife 'problem' ?
Well, she was praying for the wife to die and get out of the way!
This woman of God went as far as holding an actual wedding (minus the groom, of course) where she apparently married this man 'in the spirit'.
To cut the long story short, she never did marry her 'soul mate' and the man of God is still married to his dear wife (who is very much alive and well) to this day.
Many at times we tend to believe such verses are blank cheques to ask anything from God and He is somewhat obliged to grant us our every request.
We tend to treat God like some genie in a bottle who grants us our every wish or desire.
In truth however, God is not at your beck and call to grant you any and every desire your heart concocts. It doesn't work that way.
Prayer only works when properly used within the confines of God’s word or to put it differently, prayer only appropriates what grace has already provided for.
If it’s not within the ‘grace basket’ no amount of prayer will make God grant it.
In the case of this woman of God, clearly..
Grace did not provide for adultery.
Grace did not provide for murder.
Grace did not provide for covetousness.
The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 1:20:
“For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.”
So we can only believe God for what is within“the promises of God in Him (Christ)”..
If you think God is going to take someone else’s husband or wife and give them to you, you must have subscribed to the wrong god.
You can try and take someone else's spouse (maybe even succeed), but you can be certain God has nothing to do with it, whether you claim the person as“God’s blessing” or not.
In fact, God is vehemently against those who break up people’s marriages and homes, so much so that Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:6 issues a warning and says:
“..that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified.”
There are a lot of people thanking God for 'blessings' that are not God’s blessings. God had nothing to do with those so-called blessings. It was all you or the devil!
The truth is, if you had to compromise God’s word to get it, it was not from God. It doesn’t matter how much you try to clean it up with the name of God or how much you try to credit Him for it. If it is not within the confines of God’s grace, it was not from God. Simple.
Your job as a believer is to find out what is within this “grace basket” because anything you try to get outside of it means you will have to go get it without God. He wants no part and He wants no credit for it.
“But James, the Bible says in Psalms 37:4 that if you delight yourself in the LORD, He shall give you the desires of your heart?”
Well I hate to bust your bubble but this verse does not mean that God will grant you whatever desire your heart has but that He will superimpose His desires in your heart over your own selfish desires.
In other words, the desires your heart will have will be from God and not from you, the world or the enemy.
That's what this verse simply means.
One important thing to note about the verse is that it’s a two-part verse.
Many of us tend to focus on the giving and not so much on the delighting.
However, there’s a reason the delighting comes before the giving.
You see, when you delight yourself in the Lord, He puts His desires in your heart such that His desires become your desires.
In truth, when you don't delight yourself in the Lord, you can desire a lot of ungodly things.
There are a lot of things a child can desire and ask from their parent(s) for example that may not be good for them. It's the same in our case when it comes to our relationship with God.
If you desire for example to marry an unbelieving spouse as a believer or to take someone else's spouse or even to get rich etc., I can bet you, that desire is not from God and it’s a good indicator that you are not delighting yourself in the Lord.
In fact, Paul says desiring to get rich is ungodly. (see 1 Timothy 6:9)
Now this is not to say that God wants you to be poor and not to prosper financially, but to say He doesn't want you to fall into the temptations that come with the desire to become rich.
You see, if you let this desire permeate your entire being, you will get to a point where you will do almost anything (even unethical or illegal) to get rich and this is what Paul warns about in 1 Timothy 6:9.
If you read of all the wealthy godly men in the Bible, none of them chased after wealth and riches.
None of them said,“Oh how I wish I was rich. God make me rich!”
Wealth was a byproduct of delighting themselves in the Lord.
Being the richest man who will ever live was not even in King Solomon's radar, for example.
He didn't desire or ask for it.
In fact, it was because he didn't ask for riches that God gave him riches. (see 2 Chronicles 1:11-12)
King Solomon was so rich that gold during his reign was as common as stones. (see 2 Chronicles 1:15)
Dude would make today’s billionaires look like paupers.
My point is, these godly men in the Bible became rich accidentally seeking God than most of us ever will on purpose seeking riches.
The Bible's formula for wealth is simple, seek God first and wealth and everything else is an added bonus. (see Matthew 6:33)
You're not meant to pursue these things like the world does or like you'll take them with you when you die.
Infact, you're not meant to pursue them at all.
Yours is simply to pursue the God of the thing and in Him, you will find the thing.
When you make His business your business, He makes your business His business.
If you fail to delight yourself in the Lord, the truth is you’re going to covet and lust after many things that are not of God.
You can’t really trust and be led by the desires of your heart until you first delight yourself in the Lord.
When you really fall in love with Jesus, you will quickly find out that you fall out of love with a lot of things which means you stop praying amiss.
When God who is resident in you (if you’re a believer) is not just resident in you but president of you, He starts to really shine a spotlight on the motives of many of your heart’s desires (see 1 Corinthians 4:5) and you start to see how carnal and selfish many of them really are.
He then goes ahead to take those carnal desires away and He superimposes His desires into your heart which are in tune with His will for your life and then He honors those desires.
This is how God really works.
God will always back the desires He puts in your heart because He knows they're sound and will lead you on a path of life not death.
Knowing whether your desires are really from God can be as simple as sieving them through the word of God.
If you're truly honest with yourself and allow the word of God to do a candid assessment of your desires, you’ll be shocked how excellently they pass the flesh test with flying colours.
The word of God is clinical at exposing our innermost thoughts and desires for what they really are. (see Hebrews 4:12)
This is why as a child of God you need to yield your life to God and prayerfully let His word be a lamp unto your feet.
Sadly, many of us will sing,“I surrender all to you”, firmly seated on the driver’s seat of our lives, reserving God to a breakdown mechanic who we call only when we land into a ditch.
But the truth is, you cannot reduce God to a fire extinguisher that you only use to quench the flames of life’s issues or a lifeguard to rescue you every time you're drowning in your own messes.
You cannot use Him as a rubber-stamp for your own selfish desires either.
You must come to a place where you surrender to His Lordship and like Jesus, say,"Yet not my will but Yours be done", and sit back and let Him captain the ship that is your life rather than reserve Him to a mere passenger on the ship.
God has a will for your life and success in this life simply boils down to obedience to Him and His will for your life.
In closing, stay close to God and He will start to rub off on you.
Your desires will start to mirror His desires for you.
Trust me when I say that His desires for your life are waaaaay better than any desire you can ever have for your own life and you will avoid alot of unnecessary pitfalls by going with His desires rather than your own.
The late Ravi Zacharias once said, and I quote:
“Prayer is not seeking to change the will of God. It is communion with the living God such that He will change you to have the ability to receive what it is He has for you.”
God bless you.
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